Blizzcon Prediction Accuracy

So last week I made a bunch of predictions for Blizzcon. I was pretty conservative--too conservative, apparently. Blizzard decided to blow the doors off in a few cases and came out with some pretty impressive and interesting things. Let's see how I did this year.


Hearthstone

Nailed the new Adventure module. Got the theme incorrect though. League of Explorers looks interesting from a theme perspective--I do enjoy the Murloc, Sir Finley Mrrgleton. No real card deprecation mechanics so I got that one wrong. Having the adventure ready for a week after Blizzcon is pretty impressive timing though.

1 / 2 Predictions correct, no extra news.

As an aside I think I'm done with Hearthstone as a concept. They're tripling down on the whole random thing and I just, meh. It bothers me a lot. Yeah, there's still a fair amount of skill involved (deck creation, card counting, understanding current meta, etc.), but I just dislike that so many of the card effects are die rolls. Fun for a bit, but I'm off that bandwagon.



Heroes of the Storm

New map, three new heroes, nailed that. Cho'gall as a two-player, one character hero is a super interesting concept. I've seen the concept in action in older games previously (Mario Kart Double Dash probably being the closest example, but other cases where you have two controllers with one character), but I'll be interested to try him out with a friend. Could be absolutely hilarious.

I like that Blizzard is going off the beaten path here. Lots of maps, unlike LoL, and very different characters.

I didn't nail a new game mode though. The arena looked neat. Super fast, all out goofy mode.

1/1 Predictions correct, new game mode announced that I didn't predict.


Diablo III

New zone, two new "tilesets", sets, legendaries, a few new features, modifications to how Seasons work. I pretty much nailed this one. No new expansion even hinted at. In fact, they seemed to hint they were in maintenance mode because they seem to be gearing up to steady seasons. 2.4 is going to be a meaty patch, but yeah, don't expect too much crazy out of Diablo III in the future I think.

1/1 Predictions largely correct, though the scope of 2.4 is a bit larger than I expected.


Overwatch

1 new map, 3 new heroes. Animated shorts, console releases, buy-to-play and a launch quarter. I underestimated this a fair bit it seems. Also, can I say Mei is adorable and awesome? Not to mention I got the Battle.Net upgrade a little off. Rather than coming with StarCraft II, it came with Overwatch. Built-in BNet voice chat...which was apparently announced October 22nd if I had been paying attention, but apparently not. Whoops.

1/1 Predictions, but missed a massive slew of info around launch and lore.


StarCraft II

Nailed Ladder format, nailed eSports stuff. Got the BNet infrastructure wrong. Got the new content wrong (DLC for Nova story and mission packs). Still, definitely focused on Legacy of the Void launch.

2/4 Predictions, didn't really miss much aside from a minor amount of new content.


World of Warcraft

Beta date is still pending, but within weeks of Blizzcon suggests my by Thanksgiving might be accurate? I'll give myself 0.5 here. Got the release quarter correct as a stretch goal, but severely underestimated the amount of new information about the expansion. Transmog, class overhauls, lots of quality of life stuff, professions, new Challenge Mode dungeons, etc. I'll likely cover WoW as a separate post, but a bit excited here now.

2.5/3 Predictions, but holy moly severely underestimated the sheer amount of information they released.


Overall

Out of 12 predictions, I scored myself about 8.5/12, which is pretty damn good, actually. Granted, I was super conservative, which isn't really much fun in hindsight, so there were a few things I missed guessing on. I wish they had streamed the Darkmoon Faire Q&A panels, but there's videos of those floating about the 'net now. Overall, good Blizzcon! Looking forward to class blog posts, and Diablo III's 2.4 patch. In the meantime, I should re-finish the StarCraft II campaigns so I'm back up on my story for Legacy of the Void.
#WoW, #Blizzcon

Annual Blizzcon Predictions

Every year I like to do Blizzcon predictions. This'll be the 3rd time I've done it. The first couple times I did okay at my predictions, not being totally on the ball, but generally not being totally off either (though, frankly, I don't think anyone predicted Overwatch).

With Blizzard announcing they're no longer announcing subscribers for WoW; Activision buying King--the makers of Candy Crush; the Overwatch Beta already launching; StarCraft II's "final" expansion, Legacy of the Void, with a release date of just after Blizzcon; and Legion already getting the big announcement at Gamescom (which was my secondary guess, after last Blizzcon); Heroes of the Storm released in June and has been getting incremental updates; and Hearthstone just had The Grand Tournament released; it all leaves not a whole lot exciting to be announced.

So with that in mind, here are some of my "predictions". Take with a large grain of salt.


World of Warcraft

Let's start with the 500lb Gorilla in the room (who isn't already in Overwatch): WoW. We know Legion is coming, we know we were told we'd get a Beta before the end of the year.

I think we'll get a Beta date announced, and I believe it'll be just before Thanksgiving. We still have the 6.2.3 PTR up, so I doubt we'll see both that and a beta running side-by-side, so we'll probably see 6.2.3 finish up, then the Beta PTR go up late November.

We'll probably get a few more details on Class Halls, maybe some of the dungeons they didn't flesh out at Gamescom, and artifact weapons. Maybe some more on PvP talents as well. Mostly just refinements and smaller details of what was already announced at Gamescom. Otherwise, I don't see too much more coming on this at this time other than the beta itself.

Maybe, maybe, we'll see a general expectation for the release (Summer or Spring of 2016?). That's a pretty big stretch though, Blizz rarely likes to lock down releases that far in advance.


StarCraft II

Honestly, probably very little. The schedule says they'll talk about the future of SCII after Legacy of the Void, so expect some eSports stuff, and perhaps Blizzard will announce or talk about some sort of Battle.Net infrastructure extension for holding tournaments and the like. New ladder formats perhaps. But in the way of content, I don't forsee much new. They'll be focused on the launch itself (November 10th!).


Overwatch

Also probably not much new here. They literally just went into invite-only Beta, so perhaps we'll see some talk about what went well so far and what hasn't, and perhaps some of their near-term plans for what the beta will see next (game modes or maps, perhaps). But otherwise I expect this to be relatively low-key aside from hype hype hype.


Diablo III

The schedule has a single panel for DIII, which really says that either they have an expansion in the works and they're not ready to talk about it, or more likely, that DIII is now in maintenance mode--given the previous 2 Diablos only had a single expansion each. The panel will talk about new zones, sets, legendaries, features, etc. but for the most part I expect slight expansions on how Seasons work (since they're working pretty well so far), and generally small upgrades to the experience over time. 


Heroes of the Storm

Schedule says we'll hear about new maps and new heroes, so I guess that's what we'll hear about. The one interesting thing with games like Overwatch and Heroes is that they're very good for releasing fast incremental content, but big shebangs like Blizzcon I don't think you end up with much meaty to chat about.


Hearthstone

Last adventure module was released back in April, so I'd expect a new adventure module incoming. Maybe Ulduar? They haven't really done anything with an Old God dungeon yet. They've done Naxxramus (undead), Blackrock Mountain (dragons/dark dwarves), Gnomes vs. Goblins, and The Grand Tournament. Or perhaps they'll go with something Demonic themed to go with Legion. Mount Hyjal?

I also expect they'll start talking about card deprecation. Hearthstone has a problem where ever-expanding card pool is creating problems for folks coming back, power creep, and for developer balance. Magic The Gathering handles this by deprecating old cards, but keeping a central set of "common" cards. I don't know how Hearthstone will handle it specifically, but I imagine we'll see some sort of deprecation mechanic (or cutting edge vs. legacy card mode). This one is a bit of a bigger stretch, but it is becoming a problem they need to solve, and soon.


Other Stuff?

There's no crazy gaps in the theater schedules, and I doubt Blizzard has yet another new IP ready for show (though they may be working on something). I imagine Battle.Net improvements will get rolled in under StarCraft II (which has a number of panels).

Overall, my predictions are pretty conservative this time around, but that's because Blizzard has started dropping expansion info and bombshells willy-nilly rather than only at Blizzcon. They've been much better at keeping information flowing all year round, so Blizzcon this time will probably feel more like a celebration of existing work rather than an announcement platform.
#WoW, #Blizzcon

Blizzcon 2014 Prediction: New WoW Expansion

Go big or go home, right?

So let's break this down, because stating that I believe a completely new WoW expansion will be announced at Blizzcon is pretty out there, especially given the fact that they'll be in the midst of launching the current one they've been working on.

Blizzard is on record many, many, many times stating they want to get to faster releases, to delivering an expansion every year if possible, or at least faster than every two years. Tom Chilton of Blizzard was recently asked about why they haven't delivered on that promise:

The reality is that scaling up the number of people that we have, to work on multiple projects at once has slowed us down. Honestly, it should have not come as a surprise to us. We increased the size of the team by 50% and the majority of those people had never worked on World of Warcraft before or any other MMO, so it is really difficult for them to create content right away, without getting up to speed. So we ended up redoing a lot of the content that we were doing for Warlords to make sure that we would get it at the quality level that we would expect.

Having been on a team that literally tripled in size overnight and being responsible for their education, I can tell you it's extremely unrealistic to expect the team to not be negatively impacted in terms of delivering content. A good rule of thumb I have from experience is that it will take 3 - 6 months before a software developer can be truly independently productive on an established team/product. Closer to three if you have area expertise and/or just a lot of experience in general, and about six if you're totally new to the area and need to catch up. On top of that, the experienced folks need to take a lot of time mentoring the new team members, so their productivity is negatively affected as well.

This isn't a new concept by any means. If you're in any sort of management, The Mythical Man-Month is, frankly, a must read. Specifically:

"Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" -- Brooks' Law

I don't care what software project you're working on, this maxim holds true time and time and time again. Blizzard paid the price of violating that maxim with a later release than they wanted. However, now that the workforce is trained and up to speed, I expect that they'll be able to increase their content delivery velocity.

So if Blizzard wants to have expansions out every year, with possibly only a couple of raid tiers an expansion (I think 6 months per tier is the perfect amount of time for a tier of 10 - 14 bosses), then it makes sense that Blizzcon is their opportunity to announce this. Blizzcon next year would be too late as it would be when such an imaginary expansion would launch, though given how much they like GamesCom, perhaps they could wait until next August, but that still feels way too late for such an announcement, so no, I think Blizzard would likely feel this is the perfect time and place if this were the case.

With the launch of Warlords of Draenor the week after Blizzcon 2014, most of the excitement for it will already be at a fever pitch. Given the kinds of folks likely to be at Blizzcon or watching announcements and like are probably already getting fatigued with the amount of WoD information we've been inundated with, I don't really think the announcement of a new expansion would undercut the currently upcoming expansion too much. Frankly, I don't think there's much information about Warlords left to even go over. Even the cinematics have all been revealed.

We shall see if my prediction is correct. It's definitely a risky prediction, but really where's the fun in the small, incremental predictions? But we shall see in about two months if I am correct!

#WoW, #Blizzcon

Blizzcon 2013: Now With 50% More Accurate Predictions, And Less Filler

Blizzcon 2013 has come and gone, and now the Internet is sifting through the plethora of information dropped at our collective feet, trying to decide whether to be upset, apathetic, ecstatic, or some combination of all of them.

Diablo III, Starcraft II, Heroes of the Storm

While I want to dig into the World of Warcraft announcements, my original predictions on Diablo III, Starcraft II, and Heroes of the Storm were pretty much bang on. Granted, they were ultra-conservative, but at the same time with the WoW expansion unannounced but looming it was pretty much a no-brainer.

Hearthstone

Hearthstone has a bunch of small changes, and the open beta starts quite soon, but no release date and nothing earth shattering. They’re keeping a close eye on balance, which I fully expected, and Arena was left largely alone. Ranked play for constructed decks got a lot of updates, though, which is actually pretty nice, but I was wrong on the UI updates. Oh well.

On the bright side, Mind Control is getting nerfed. I only pick on that card because I got completely trounced in Arena the other day when this Priest MC’d a minion of mine who had 7 health, and the next turn added 3 health to it via the Temple Enforcer, doubled its health via Divine Spirit, then changed the attack of the card to match its health using Inner Fire for 9 mana total. Then proceeded to bludgeon me with a 20/20 minion that used to be mine. Rude. And clever. But mostly rude.

Rude.

But I’m most excited to see Hearthstone coming to iOS and Android. Being able to play this game on the bus commute to work would be absolutely brilliant.

World of Warcraft

Let’s jump into my predictions and see how they fared:

“MMO-Champion thinks it’ll be called Warlords of Draenor.”

Boubouille did indeed get this correct.

“For some reason everyone keeps saying Time Travel. Not sure where they got that idea. Blizzard’s modus operandi so far has been new discovered landmass ... so I figure it’ll be a previously undiscovered landmass of Draenor in Outland. The other option I could think of was doing the Cata-style revamp on Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh, then re-purpose the rest of Outland to be 90+ content. Lots of folks hate going through Outland, and it’s not nearly the scope of redoing all of Azeroth.”

Well, I’m wrong on this one, mostly. According to Blizzard, It’s sorta-not-really Time Travel. Alternate universe, but alternate universe in the past. Outland stays where it is, and the Dark Portal will lead us to alternate-Draenor. See the Dev Q&A for the best explanation of it so far. However, the end result is a new continent, so at least I got that part right. More details can be found here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/11512864/Warlords_of_Draenor_Journey_into_Draenor-11_8_2013

“As far as lore is concerned, perhaps we’ll run into a set of orcs who are still corrupted by the Burning Legion (making a good segue into a Burning Legion expansion or raids). Draenor/Outland would also mean more Draenei and Blood Elf storylines, as well. And of course Turalyon and Alleria. Illidan, too, since Metzen has stated he’d love to give the Demon Hunter a chance at redemption.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wro... oh, what? We actually get some Space Goat lore? Well, 2 words correct out of that paragraph isn’t too bad, maybe.

“I expect we’ll see the level cap be 100 rather than 95. It makes for a nice round number for the tenth anniversary, plus the heirlooms go to 100. I’m not ultra-confident on this one; it’s really a stupid wild-ass guess. But I’m fairly confident we’ll finally see the number squish. Given the feature exists in nascent form already, we’ll likely see level/item scaling for older dungeons, too.”

Level cap of 100 confirmed. Number squish confirmed. Scaling not mentioned.

“Blizzard seems pleased with how classes and talents are working these days, so I figure those will stay mostly untouched. Rogues are overdue for an overhaul, and such an overhaul worked okay for Warlocks. However, the glyph system was effectively a prototype of the new talent system, and doesn’t have a good niche anymore, so I’ll bet there’ll be an update to that feature.”

Bang on with the talents and classes. Wrong on the Rogue thing, but no mention of glyphs.

“Things I think we won’t see are a new class, spec, or race. They've already got a tonne on their plates for balance and diversity with the classes and races they have today.”

Boom. No new races or classes. Crushed it.

“We may get a preview of one or two new character models, but I doubt they’re anywhere near complete, and nor do I believe they will be complete for the expansion drop.”

They’ve got a few models done, and it's official for the expansion, but they don’t have a release timeline and they’re not sure they’ll all be done for the expansion drop. So pretty much correct here.

“I also don’t believe we’ll see a release date or target for the next expansion (though if I had to guess, I’m thinking August with a 5.5 patch in between).”

No release date, but no 5.5 drop either, as it would delay WoD.

“There’s been a lot of talk about fixing up professions as well, but given the number of times they’ve talked about fixing them, I’m going to guess they’ll talk about it yet again, but not actually implement any such fixes.”

The new Garrison feature might give you access to more professions, and Blizzard again talked about wanting to spruce up professions with more catch-up mechanics, and fixing the UI, but surprise, surprise, nothing to be implemented.

So I’d say I was about 50/50 for being accurate on my predictions, but what about all the stuff I didn’t predict? Because there’s some juicy tidbits and features that I didn’t even think about.

So some may remember the conversation on Gamer by Design about the gear treadmill. One of my anonymous commenters made the great point that every new piece of gear requires an immense amount of work to be useful: reforging, enchanting, gemming, upgrading, dancing around the hit/expertise cap, and so on. Apparently Blizzard agreed, because not only did they do away with hit and expertise, but they abolished reforging, reduced the number of slots that can be enchanted (but said they’ll increase the enchants available for those slots), reduce the amount of gem slots, and they’re on the fence whether they’ll keep upgrades. To make loot a little more exciting they’ll be adding tertiary stats, that don’t count against itemization budget, like cleave, AoE damage reduction, and move speed.

Raid formats are changing. Normal is the new Flex, Heroic is the new Normal, and along with LFR all 3 will be flexible from 10 to 25 players. And the new Mythic raid format with a set 20 players, which replaces the old Heroic mode. Personally I’m psyched that “normal” will be flexible, but Balkoth, a current Heroic raider, has an interesting take on the new Mythic format.

The feature I’m looking forward to the most, however, are the Garrisons. Like the farm in MoP, but on steroids. Players will be able to build an entire outpost, recruit NPCs with their own stats, gear, abilities, and levels, and send them on quests, dungeons, and raids to get gear and materials. They’ll also allow you to have access to professions your character doesn’t currently have as well. It brings a bit of the RTS back into Warcraft. It feels a lot like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King which was super fun, so I am completely stoked to give this a try.

Minions! Screenshot from MMO-Champ.

 

Overall I’m excited for the new expansion. I’m not completely sold on the story (and by using Garrosh so soon, the Dungeon Master in me thinks that we’re just teaching players they should kill every opponent they ever run into, but given that we have no control of our story actions, it doesn’t really matter), but the item squish, Garrisons, new raid formats, and itemization seem like pretty big game changers. Also, have you seen the new Tauren and Dwarf models? Makes me want to roll me some new characters. Can’t wait to see the Draenei.

New Dorf model! Shiny! Screenshot from MMO-Champ.

New Tauren model! Also shiny! Screenshot from MMO-Champ.

 

Blizzcon 2013: SWAGs, but no YOLO

In the software industry, or at least at my company, we often use the term SWAG--stupid wild-ass guess, not the teenager slang version--when making estimates, because honestly, guessing the future is hard when you haven’t had a chance to talk to people, prototype, or just research. And so with Blizzcon in a week, I figured I’d throw up some SWAGs about what I think Blizzard will talk about.

(I must be getting old. That title makes me cringe.)

Friday’s Schedule

Saturday’s Schedule

 

Hearthstone

We know we’ll see the Invitational, and I’m rather interested in finding out how these higher ranked players go about deck building and playing. While Hearthstone feels really straightforward, there feels like there’s just that hint of depth that I’m missing, and I can’t wait to see if that hint gets played out.

We also know there’s a fireside chat which will talk about the current metagame, and future features. I fully expect that better deck-building tools will be announced, as that’s a pretty large weak point in their mostly ultra-polished client. I’m going to guess that they will also continue to iterate on daily quests. The Arena feels mostly complete, so I don’t think we’ll see many changes to that mode. I doubt we’ll see a release date announced either. With the WoW panel just before it, I’m not sure they want to be drowned in what gets announced there, and I don’t think they feel they’re ready for release anyhow.

Speaking of which...

World of Warcraft

Even without insider information, we’ll see the next expansion announced. I mean, the Friday panel is called “What’s Next.” MMO-Champion thinks it’ll be called Warlords of Draenor, and given Boubouille’s track record, I think I believe him this time around, as opposed to The Dark Below, or Corgis Unleashed.

Shamelessly stolen from the MMO-Champ boards because it is delightful. And I would totally play the crap out of it.

So what’ll be in this expansion? For some reason everyone keeps saying Time Travel. Not sure where they got that idea. Blizzard’s modus operandi so far has been new discovered landmass--Cataclysm excepted, and they’re already on record as saying that the dispersed feel of Cata was not conducive to a good expansion--so I figure it’ll be a previously undiscovered landmass of Draenor in Outland. The other option I could think of was doing the Cata-style revamp on Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh, then re-purpose the rest of Outland to be 90+ content. Lots of folks hate going through Outland, and it’s not nearly the scope of redoing all of Azeroth. Revamping two zones is well within reach of their developer resources.

As far as lore is concerned, perhaps we’ll run into a set of orcs who are still corrupted by the Burning Legion (making a good segue into a Burning Legion expansion or raids). Draenor/Outland would also mean more Draenei and Blood Elf storylines, as well. And of course Turalyon and Alleria. Illidan, too, since Metzen has stated he’d love to give the Demon Hunter a chance at redemption. 

I expect we’ll see the level cap be 100 rather than 95. It makes for a nice round number for the tenth anniversary, plus the heirlooms go to 100. I’m not ultra-confident on this one; it’s really a stupid wild-ass guess. But I’m fairly confident we’ll finally see the number squish. Given the feature exists in nascent form already, we’ll likely see level/item scaling for older dungeons, too.

Blizzard seems pleased with how classes and talents are working these days, so I figure those will stay mostly untouched. Rogues are overdue for an overhaul, and such an overhaul worked okay for Warlocks. However, the glyph system was effectively a prototype of the new talent system, and doesn’t have a good niche anymore, so I’ll bet there’ll be an update to that feature.

Things I think we won’t see are a new class, spec, or race. They've already got a tonne on their plates for balance and diversity with the classes and races they have today. We may get a preview of one or two new character models, but I doubt they’re anywhere near complete, and nor do I believe they will be complete for the expansion drop. I also don’t believe we’ll see a release date or target for the next expansion (though if I had to guess, I’m thinking August with a 5.5 path in between). There’s been a lot of talk about fixing up professions as well, but given the number of times they’ve talked about fixing them, I’m going to guess they’ll talk about it yet again, but not actually implement any such fixes.

Starcraft II

According to Wikipedia, “by August 2013, the story for Legacy of the Void was written, much of the cinematics were done, and voice actors were in the studio recording dialogue for the game.”

Given the schedule--on which I see very little SCII--and the one panel only has balance discussions, it seems like we won’t see much about the Protoss expansion. I think this game will be relatively low key given that both WoW and Diablo III will have a lot of expansion talk, and we have two new games, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm.

Heroes of the Storm

Blizzard’s new MOBA, we’ll see game play and discussion panels. Nobody has seen footage of the game in action yet, so I expect a lot of buzz and new videos/info. Otherwise I honestly couldn’t care less. I’ve played League of Legends, not really my thing. Though I admit, that a lot of people really, really like LoL and other MOBAs.

The LoL booth at PAX East and PAX Aus 2013. PAX Prime was also just as packed, but I apparently forgot to take a photo. Trust me, it was crazy. Blizzard clearly wants a piece.

Diablo III

We already know a fair bit about the DIII expansion, Reaper of Souls, and the schedule shows they’ll talk about the new Crusader class, as well as new mechanics. I don’t think there’ll be anything new per se, but I expect concepts already revealed (Loot 2.0, the new Paragon system, new monsters, AH-less future, etc.) will be expanded upon.

So those are my predictions. I kinda cheated by waiting for the schedule to be announced, but overall I think there’ll be a lot of exciting stuff nonetheless, with a focus on WoW and Heroes of the Storm. We’ll see how accurate (or more likely, inaccurate) my predictions are.

What do you think? Anything you’re excited or trepidatious about? Predictions of your own?